Fatalities for 2014

Ketergrams are part of the Safety Subcommittee's program to promptly disseminate facts and outlines of events that have resulted in the deaths of Foundation staff in the line of duty. The data provided is based on preliminary investigations only, and does not represent final determinations or conclusions with respect to these events. Most bulletins recommend one or more "best practices", deemed likely to have prevented or mitigated the associated fatalities.

Information contained within these bulletins has been redacted as necessary and is approved for general use by L-1 staff and above who do not have specific prohibitions against such exposure. Administrators are asked to post these bulletins as soon as practical, in appropriate areas where staff congregate or frequent.

This annual summary of the previous calendar years' bulletins is provided to allow staff to review incidents they might have missed due to workload, vacation, or incapacitation.

Individually, you are encouraged to discuss the information within with colleagues, and contemplate how you might have prepared differently for, or responded differently to the events that unfolded. Supervisory staff are asked to recognize and forward practical suggestions, both general and specific, to the Safety Subcommittee. Our mission is to systematically improve the safety of Foundation operations.

MEMETIC FATALITY

On Saturday, February 22, 2014, a 22-year old Level 1 researcher with three weeks of experience self-terminated after discovering a previously unknown memetic hazard within a site of interest being explored for anomalous data.

The victim had been hand-restoring a 4th century BCE plaster fresco attributed to Aristippus, depicting an unknown (outside the Foundation) geometric proof. According to surveillance footage, the entire fresco suddenly crumbled and collapsed in a thick cloud of dust, briefly revealing a mosaic beneath before the lens was obscured by dust and detritus. Audio records the victim sneezing and gasping for twenty seconds, followed by eight seconds of complete silence. Next, a barely audible utterance (perhaps 'avaunt ye') is whispered in a guttural voice, presumably the victim's. This was followed by eight minutes and twenty seconds of rapid, shallow scraping sounds, punctuated by irregular, incoherent moans from the victim.

The response team found the victim unresponsive on the floor in front of the artwork, with his nose, mouth and the palms of both hands severely abraded. Evidence suggested that the victim had obtained the injuries by rubbing his face and hands - rapidly, repeatedly, and with substantial strength - across the jagged onyx tesserae comprising the mosaic. Efforts at resuscitation were unsuccessful.

The underlying mosaic immediately after the incident - most details, particularly the memetic triggers, have been obscured by the victim's blood.

BEST PRACTICES

When performing research within a site of interest, obtain basic inoculation against well-known memetic tropes.

When practical, wear auto-darkening safety goggles whenever there is a risk of exposure to anomalous imagery.

BREACH FATALITY

On Wednesday, April 30, 2014, a 32-year-old Euclid-qualified SCP researcher at Site-66 with eighteen months of research experience was fatally injured while traversing Containment Sector Foxtrot when he was struck in the chest by a proboscis of SCP-████ after it penetrated Containment Cell No. 26.

The victim was not assigned to SCP-████, but passed containment chamber No. 26 on his way back to his office from the cafeteria. Ordinarily, the victim would have taken approved pedestrian route No. 6, which did not pass through any containment sectors, but earlier that day an unrelated breach had left a disagreeable odor in the approved route.

The assigned, active researcher, wearing a standard bio-signature suppression suit, and operating a hydraulic entity probe arm directly attached to the containment wall, gestured to the victim for assistance in clearing a jam.

As the unprotected victim approached the assigned researcher, he crossed the yellow warning stripe positioned 5 meters from the containment wall. Almost immediately, a toothed proboscis breached through 5cm thick steel plating, pierced his heart, and exsanguinated him.

During the subsequent investigation, it was discovered that the victim was carrying two peanut butter cookies, baked in the cafeteria kitchen only an hour before, in the breast pocket where he was struck.

Containment Sector Foxtrot, Site-66

BEST PRACTICES

Use only approved pedestrian routes for travel between safe areas within a site.

Follow standard procedures for servicing failed equipment; do not enlist help from staff unfamiliar with your assigned SCP.

Heed all warning indicators, lamps, and signs, their placement is precise.

Never bring foodstuffs into containment zones.

BREACH FATALITY

On Saturday, May 2, 2014, two Keter qualified SCP researchers with 15 and 12 years' hazardous research experience at remote Site-307 were transmuted into an organic substance similar to alburnum, and then fatally incinerated after four redundant suppressant lamps failed within thirty seconds of one another.

Facility records showed that the bulbs in all four lamps had been installed and illuminated on the same date about 30 months earlier, when the special containment procedures had been revised. Subsequent review of the manufacturer's specifications indicated that the bulbs had a mean lifetime of 21925.7 hours, with a standard deviation of .1 hours. Supply manifests indicated that 24 spares were on hand, and that none had been used since the original installation.

The victims had been assigned to Site-307 for forty-four months without incident, and were performing routine weekly vivisection of SCP-███ when the breach occurred.

Dr. Hawthorn, final frame of video feed, just as failsafe detonated.

BEST PRACTICES

Replacement schedules of redundant consumables should be rotated to stagger MTBF.

CONTAINMENT FATALITY

On Saturday, July 5, 2014, a 63-year old Conflagration Specialist with thirty-seven years of experience was killed while attempting to contain a novel anomaly.

The victim was attached to MTF Delta-2 ("Rocky Mountain Spotted Oysters"), in pursuit of multiple Euclid entities that had emerged from geothermal vents west of Cody, Wyoming. The Specialist's primary containment role was the suppression of fires (this was a particularly flammable environment), and his secondary role was coordination of threat-tuned artillery and airstrikes.

In this case, the offensive payload was experimental anhydrous ████████ at 270° C, which has since been conclusively demonstrated an effective immobilant of flame-based SCPs. When used as directed, it carries a low risk of direct harm to approved targets; however, the molten state tends to ignite incidental fires.

Over the course of approximately eighty minutes of active engagement, MTF Delta-2 successfully contained all but one target without taking casualties. Once isolated, the remaining target demonstrated markedly increased aggression, igniting trees and wildlife with what was interpreted as deliberate malice by several witnesses. At the same time, however, it also appeared to become disoriented, slowing and moving out into the open, which allowed the MTF to quickly close on its position.

The victim remained in the transport vehicle to call for a final barrage while the remainder of his team approached the target on foot.

The events that followed are still under investigation; however, the following facts were uncovered during the mission debriefing:

Target coordinates were provided to the artillery team by radio on the expected channel with the correct spread spectrum carrier frequency.

Audio analysis of the recorded orders matches the voiceprint of the victim, and contains no duress cues.

The target coordinates were supplied with one more decimal of precision than had been used previously in the engagement.

The artillery appears to have functioned correctly, and a review of audit logs found no evidence of misuse or tampering.

The subsequent barrage struck the transport vehicle, and was accurately centered on the fuel door. The impact detonated the tank of diesel fuel and instantly incinerated the contents of the vehicle.

During the brief confusion after the transport was destroyed, MTF Delta-2 lost contact with the remaining target. It remains at large.

The transport 1.7s after impact, from the POV of Specialist Reese

BEST PRACTICES

Leverage the additional margin of safety associated with laser-assisted, fully automated artillery systems when their use is not impractical.

Electric armored vehicles are now available to qualified teams; consider their requisition to mitigate the risks associated with diesel fuel in combat environments.

RESEARCH FATALITY

On Friday, September 12, 2014, eight Euclid qualified researchers, including two members of the ECRG, with over 120 years of combined experience, stationed in orbit around ███████'s former innermost moon ███ were fatally spaghettified again when ███ spontaneously formed an anomalous ergosphere and subjected their station to irresistible tidal forces.

In addition to their primary containment mission, experiments aboard the FS Unruh were testing the relationship between local quantum phenomena and n-body orbital stability in an ongoing attempt to refine containment procedures for ultramassive SCPs.

As with the preceding three iterations of these events, the precise timeline1, specific details of staff behaviors, and exact contents of the sporadic reports transmitted from the station exhibit inconsequential deviations from the original continuity, however, the heroic acts of staff at key points in the unfolding disaster followed the same general outline:

Time2 (mm:ss)

Events

00:31

Principal Investigator Karapetyan manually breaches the reactor shield to make physical contact with the core and disrupt the entanglement. This exposes him to a fatal dose of beta radiation, but likely delays the exponential phase of the gravitational bloom for at least five minutes.

04:45

First Officer Imanishi jettisons the ███████ ████ ███ in direct defiance of an order from Captain Sforza. In his capacity as L-4, Sforza summarily sentences Imanishi to death for insubordination, murder, and mutiny. In the absence of weaponry, he resorts to strangulation to carry out the execution - a notable deviation from his method in the previous iterations. Post hoc analysis of telemetry suggests that Imanishi's action prolonged the orbital stability of the Unruh for about fifteen additional minutes.

17:45

Researcher Tapirus, who had already been on EVA to perform routine maintenance, uses an arc welder to deliberately breach a pressurized external fluorine tank and the adjacent storage cylinder of lithium grease. The resulting reaction provides substantial additional prograde thrust to the Unruh. The safety cable and Tapirus' left arm are severed by the ignition. Drifting away from the ship and apparently in shock, Tapirus optimistically reports that the wound and spacesuit were cauterized closed.

18:02

Just as ███████ begins to detectably move toward the ███████-███ system's effective center of gravity (located well within the surface of ███), Researcher Odhiambo transmits a traditional Acholi 'birthing song' towards the surface of ███. As Odhiambo sings, the exponential gravitational bloom stabilizes, likely averting an XK-class end-of-the-world scenario. At the conclusion of her song, Odhiambo briefly reports hearing a form of music transmitted in response. Sensor data suggests that a localized gravitational anomaly manifests within her cranium shortly after, causing massive injury.

27:01

As the Unruh crosses the static limit of ███'s ergosphere, Researcher Arnold assembles and activates a crude Penrose Reflector, extracting sufficient power to function as an energy weapon directed at the surface of ███. However, the corresponding loss of angular momentum causes the Unruh to descend rapidly past the event horizon.

34:15

Relativistic jets are emitted from the poles of ███ for thirty-seven seconds as its gravitational field returns to ordinary strength. ███ disintegrates at the same time. Over the subsequent five months, its debris field forms yet another new ring around ███████.

This iteration manifested three minutes later than anticipated. Further, ███ appeared in its orbit with an argument of periapsis eight degrees greater than the current model predicted. The events lasted seven minutes longer than the previous iteration before conclusion. The combination of uncertainty of the predictive model, the █-hour communications delay from Earth, and the occluding position of ███ when it manifests makes it unlikely that the instructions transmitted from the Foundation in anticipation of this iteration were received by the Unruh within the brief window before disorder ensued.

In consultation with the Ethics Committee and Human Resources, the O5 council voted to posthumously award an additional four Foundation Stars to Karapetyan, Imanishi, Tapirus, and Odhiambo for their repeated acts of bravery in this iteration.

Schematic gravity wells of ███████ and its moon ███ at peak bloom. Ergosphere of ███ shown in red, and terminal orbit of the Unruh in blue.

BEST PRACTICES

When calculating the Killing horizon for a co-rotating reference frame, the colatitude in the denominator may be relativistically shifted by as much as $1/\sqrt{1-\lambda}$ when the plane of orbit is tangent to the Minkowski manifold of a much larger mass. Always allow for relaxation of the orthogonal submanifolds.

1 as measured locally from the Unruh (relativistic effects cause significant distortion of timestamps as measured from Earth)2 from initial entanglement, which corresponds precisely to the initial moment of each manifestation